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Month: May 2012

Twenty-two weeks pregnant and I am wondering how I am going to look and feel at 35 weeks! Yikes! I have lots of energy still and am on my feet nearly all day long. I just need help from my husband in getting our baby upstairs in the attic to her crib. Other than that the pregnancy has been really pretty easy physically.

I listen to their heartbeats each night before bed and bought a little wrist blood pressure monitor to take my blood pressure a couple of times a day. The time is going quick now and I know it’s only going to get hard in the coming weeks. I pray they both make it here safely. We are thinking of naming them Anna and Tabitha from the Bible. We’ll try to take another picture at about 35 weeks if we make it that far along. : )

We bought a Jersey cow a few weeks ago and are reaping the benefits of 3 gallons of milk a day. We make yogurt, butter, ricotta cheese, cottage cheese and will be venturing into mozzarella and a hard cheese in a few days.

Here is the fresh, raw milk on the left. I read in the “Untold Story of Milk” that milk and butter is white because the cows are confined. When they are free to graze fresh, green grass their milk takes on a warm yellow color.

See the cream on the top? I scoop it out to make butter and then make raw milk yogurt with the rest of it each night.

This is what real butter looks like.

Ricotta – We had this in lasagna last week. It was absolutely delicious! Recipe – Heat 1 gallon of milk to 185 degrees, add 1/2 cup of white or apple cider vinegar, stir then strain in a cloth over a bowl until it stops dripping.

Our milk in the refrigerator now.

A cultured milk pancake. Now I must share something with you. Raw milk will not get bad if you let it sit out. It cultures beautifully into a lightly sweet malt flavored milk after about 3 days and then it starts to turn into a more cheesy flavor and smell. This is how most of the world drinks their milk. Abraham did. When you pasteurize milk it kills an enzyme which inhibits bacterial growth, that’s why pasteurized milk sours into a bacteria infested, smelly waste product. Please see for yourself about cultured/clabbered milk: http://astepofhealth.blogspot.com/2010/03/clabbered-milk.html

Real Cream – Some of it we let culture for a couple of days to increase the beautiful flavor and healthy enzymes.

Some of our pretty land

A place for the cows to graze

Another view from the pasture

And here comes “Daisy”

Coming over to say hello

Walking with her friend. She was a bit skitish when she arrived so Norman, the Amish man who sold us this pregnant, milking cow for only $500 had loaned us another cow for a time to let her settle in.